From the Publisher’s Desk (Volume 2, No. 2 – June, 2013)

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Dear Readers –

This third issue Exchange has been delayed for two months but I like to think the disruptions to my schedule and reasons for putting it off have been worthwhile. Since publishing last time, I have attended three significant events.

The first was the Global Business-as-Mission (BAM) Congress in Chiang Mai, Thailand. It capped the culmination of the initial research phase of the virtual BAM Think Tank. You can learn much more at http://bamthinktank.org/, and / or read my initial reflections on the event in my blog post – “Sawasdee-cup from a Chiang Mai Global BAM Congress Delegate” (available here). As I suspected, a great deal that is to come from the Global Congress will take years to unfold. The final reports from all sixteen issue groups, which presented their preliminary findings at the Congress, will be vetted for release in the Fall of this year.

The second event was a half-day presentation of Mission Nexus (http://www.missionexus.org/). Missio Nexus came to Atlanta as part of their Seven-City Connection Tour to help build relationships with mission folk in Philadelphia, Chicago, Orlando, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Colorado Springs, Dallas, and surrounding areas. Steve Moore, Missio Nexus President, brought a report from the Executive Summary of their recent Missio Nexus 2013 CEO Survey: Navigating Global Currents, which surveyed more than 180 mission agency leaders and their views on today’s toughest challenges and ripest opportunities. The Executive Summary can be purchased from the Missio Nexus web site for just $9.95 (a bargain!). The event also featured a talk by Paul Borthwick, author of Western Christians in Global Mission: What’s the Role of the North American Church? This should be read in (or to) every local church in the United States. Mission practice is changing and Missio Nexus and Paul Borthwick are at the forefront of the conversation on where it is going and how we are to get there.

The third event was the Marketplace Revolution ’13 U.S. National Gathering hosted by Launch Chattanooga (http://www.launchchattanooga.org/) and emceed by Rudy Carrasco, Partners Worldwide U.S. Regional Facilitator (http://www.partnersworldwide.org). There is a three-part series of short articles in this issue of Exchange concerning that event, one of the business owners who went through the Launch Entrepreneur Training Program and recently celebrated the Grand opening of All Dogs and More, and finally, an exploration of how Scott Soltau, a Launch co-founder, found grace in his own business development even as he was extending grace to the at-risk community in Chattanooga.

Given how much I learned at these three events, in addition to the incalculably valuable networking that occurred at all three, I have been focused a great deal the last two months on the topic of collaboration. The cooperative and collaborative spirit leading the accomplishments surrounding the three events above should be replicated at the local level between church congregations and at the national and international level between denominations and mission agencies. Quite frankly, we are failing the mission of God (missio Dei) in the world by the horribly inefficiencies of operating within and protecting our fiefdoms from “the competition.” It is exactly this attitude against which Christ prayed (John 17:22) and to which, perhaps to their great surprise, many local church leaders and denominational and missions leaders will be held to account. I have included an excerpt – “Competition versus Cooperation and Collaboration” –

from my book, Eden’s Bridge: The Marketplace in Creation and Mission in this issue of Exchange as it pertains specifically to our understanding of the marketplace in Christian perspective  and to encourage godly leaders to lay down territorialism and fear in light of God’s abundant grace to fulfill every need.

As always, I encourage readers to respond to the articles in this issue of Exchange at the individual pages on the www.edensbridge.org web site. I also encourage readers with an interest in the integration of Christian faith and business practice to submit relevant articles, including book reviews.

Shalom,

Dave Doty

Eden’s Bridge

This journal is downloadable in its entirety in .pdf format and all articles are available individually for reading online at http://www.edensbridge.org for ease of sharing.